[To this period belongs chronologically H. P. B.’s English translation of the Russian work of Col. Nikolay Ivanovich Grodelcoff, entitled in the original Russian Cherez Afganistan (Through Afghânistan), which she contributed to the columns of The Pioneer of Allâhâbâd, at the request of its Editor, A. P. Sinnett, as has been definitely stated by him.*
This translation appeared serially under the title of “The Travels of Colonel Grodekoff,” and ran from April 8 through July 9, 1880. It was unsigned.
Grodekoff, then a Colonel, later a Lieutenant-General of the Russian Imperial Army, was born at Elizavetgrad in 1943. He graduated from the Nicholas Academy of the General Staff and served on the General Staff in the Caucasus and in Turkestan. He took part in five expeditions in Hiva and Turkmenia, and was decorated with the medal of St. George, 4th degree, for the capture of Geok-Tepe. In 1883 he was Military Governor of the Sir-Darya District. It was in 1878 that Grodekoff made a very interesting journey from Samarkand through Mazir-i-Sherif, Meymene, Herat and Meshed, into Astrabad, which he described in his work mentioned above, and which was published in 1880.†
Grodekoff wrote two other works: Hivinskiy pohod 1873 goda (The Hiva Expedition of 1873) which was published in 1883 (2nd, enl. ed., St. Petersburg: V. S. Balashev, 1888. 343 pp.), and Voyna v Turkmenii (The War in Turkmenia) which appeared in four volumes in 1883-84 (St. Petersburg: V. S. Balashev).
Grodekoff also wrote on military, political and geographical subjects in several Russian periodicals.—Compiler.]
––––––––––
* Vide his pamphlet, The “Occult World Phenomena” and the Society for Psychical Research. London: George Redway, 1886.
† Cherez Afganistan. Putyeviye zapiski Generalnago Shtaba polkovnika N. I. Grodekova (Through Afghanistan. Travel Diaries of Colonel of General Staff, N. I. Grodekoff). It was published by the Novoye Vremya Publishers in St. Petersburg, and is a work of some 130 pages. The same year an English translation of it by C. Marvin (London: W. H. Allen & Co., pp. xx, 224) was published under the title of Colonel Grodekoff’s Ride from Samarkand to Herat, etc.
––––––––––